***
We would later learn that the epicenter of the bombing was in the Auteuil quarter, dangerously close to us. The Germans had sought to bomb the Renault and Citroën factories that bordered the city, but the nearby areas had also suffered extensive damage from the one thousand bombs that had been dropped.
If we needed a wake-up call, we now had one. The radio blared the reports of the French causalities: hundreds feared dead, dozens of fires, and fifteen factories destroyed. We all knew that the warfare would only escalate and that the danger to Paris would increase.
I could see the anxiety on Monsieur Armel’s face and knew that he had been finalizing the negotiation with Clavel’s contact.
“Monsieur Clavel has a dealer meeting us in Marseille that will be the liaison for the collector that is purchasing the book,” he informed us.
“We leave in four days for the south,” Monsieur Armel announced later that afternoon. “We can take only our essentials. Solomon and his family will be coming with us, too.”
He looked exhausted. “Solange, you will need to take care of both your father’s apartment and your grandmother’s.
“I’ve already paid a deposit to an organization that is helping to arrange the transportation of Jewish travelers out of France. They’ll be securing our transit visas and boat tickets. But we must not waste any time. The visas will have an expiration date, and the boat from Lisbon won’t wait for us.”
***
As Monsieur Armel and Alex prepared to leave, I had two apartments that I needed to close. My childhood home was now devoid of most of my sentimental attachments. I had already moved most of my journals, clothes, and even the old Mickey Mouse doll from my father’s to my grandmother’s. My father had taken care of what paperwork there was before he left, and there was little of value that remained except for my mother’s beautiful bookshelf, which I knew I could not possibly take with me. But if I was going to sell the Barcelona Haggadah, I needed to replace it with another book that could keep me connected to my mother, something of sentimental value. So I returned to the apartment to take one last piece of her before I left Paris.
***
“Do you want me to come with you?” Alex asked as he stood knee-deep in his family’s living room trying to figure out if there were any books they had overlooked that they still might be able to sell.
“No, that’s kind of you.” I shook my head. “But I think I need to do it myself.”
Less than an hour later, I arrived at my childhood apartment, quietly opening the door to the entrance and walking up the narrow stairs as I had done so many times in my life.
When I entered, the apartment already looked sparse. Although it was early spring, the rooms were cold, and if emptiness had a smell, this was it. It struck me then and there that the smells and sounds of life are what created a sense of warmth within a home. The same could be said about Marthe’s apartment. Without the fragrance of her fresh flowers, the trail of her perfume, or the sound of her heels against the wooden floorboards, the apartment seemed more like a mausoleum than a home.
The only bit of color remaining in our old apartment was mymother’s bookshelf. I walked over and scanned the shelves, which were lined with scores of novels and slender volumes of poetry. If I could take only one book that encapsulated my memory of her, it had to be one that I remembered her holding between her hands. I reached for the book of fairy tales that she had read to me so many times when I was a child, and placed it in my bag. The cover was worn around the edges; the paper had yellowed. But when I opened the book and smelled its pages, it reminded me of my mother. I was bringing with me the fragrance of my childhood when I slipped that tattered old book into my bag.
***
As I walked toward my bedroom, I had the strange sensation that I was moving through the rooms of a dollhouse. Everything looked smaller than I remembered it. My bed with the floral coverlet now looked childish to me. My chair, with its pale yellow cushion, also didn’t look like it befitted a grown woman. Even my wooden desk contained traces of me from another time. I lifted one of my old notepads and saw that some of the sentences I had written over the years had transferred through the sheet paper. Like an old palimpsest, the words were etched into the wood.
But I would take nothing from this room on my journey with the Armels. I had already removed what I needed. And now I had in my possession one more book from my mother. I felt at peace with the notion that I might never return to this apartment. Unlike Marthe with her apartment, Father did not own his. How many months in advance father paid the rent, I did not know. And it was likely that the landlord would take possession of our apartment once the rent ceased to be paid and neither my father nor I reappeared.
So I silently said good-bye to the rooms where I had spent my childhood, and the furniture on which I had shared meals with my parents or read my books.
I shut the door and walked toward the living room one last time. I took a piece of paper from my father’s desk and sat down to write.
Dear Papa,
I have written you more times than I can now count, but my letters have remained unanswered. I don’t know if you’re alive or dead. I pray that you are safe and unwounded, and that it is only the channels of communication that have prevented you from telling me how you’re faring...
I placed my note in an envelope and wrote on the front,For Papa. Then I quietly walked out the door.
***
When I arrived at my grandmother’s apartment, I was surprised to discover Giselle’s bag in the vestibule.
Perched on a stepstool, she was dusting with a feather brush the ornaments on the shelves flanking Marthe’s portrait, her gray hair pinned behind her ears.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” I said as I placed my bag down and walked closer to her. “Please tell me you and your family are safe and no damage happened to your home from the other day.”
“No, Solange, we were lucky, thank God.”
I placed my hand on her back and helped her down from the stool.
